Selvedge Magazine News Feature

Thank you Editor Polly Leonard for featuring my recent Saatchi Art Showdown Art prize in her newest KNIT issue. Polly was one of the first people to encourage me to make art out of tailoring patterns and supported my first book Dead Man’s Patterns (2008). Thank you Polly, thank you Selvedge. To purchase the Knit issue visit here.

New Work added to the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series

New work added to my Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. I’m utilising more colour, which is quite exciting!

About the series:

My latest work mines a seam of precious material hidden between the pages of Le Petit Echo de la Mode. Published in Paris between 1897 and 1983 Le Petit Echo de la Mode was a popular domestic fashion and lifestyle magazine. Within it, loose and often discarded, I pluck a streak of radical abstraction. The magazine contains tailoring patterns that, for efficiency’s sake, layer the life-sized templates of entire garments onto a single sheet of paper. Each facet of the garment is encoded in an intricate web of lines, dots and numbers, and challenges us to view this sheet not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. Shattering the female form into precise overlapping facets flattened not as views of a subject but as the object itself. I make the radical potential loose in Le Petit Echo de la Mode real by cutting delicate sheets of coloured paper with the pride of a mother. The sheet of paper instructs the housewife, and the artist, to make itself. Predating Futurism and prefiguring Cubism these Le Petit Echo de la Mode abstracted the female subject to a degree more radical and precise than the highest aspirations of the 1912 manifetso Du “Cubisme”.

Please click on each image for more details.

Visit my Saatchi Art portfolio to view details and how to acquire.

 

Profile feature in Luxure magazine

I was really excited when Luxure magazine asked me to pose and be interviewed for their Tailored issue. The magazine is a  celebration of exquisite craftsmanship, heritage and the culture of luxury.

“THE BRILLIANCE OF BESPOKE

This Tailored issue celebrates all that is wonderful about attention to detail, looking at the real meaning and understanding of what bespoke is. Whether it is in fashion, travel, hotels or interior design, it is the details that make the difference. Understanding the importance of craftsmanship and its relationship with what matters to us most, underpins this issue.”

Reggie Ansah
Editor-In-Chief

Those very words make me feel really privileged. Thanks to the dapper Mr. Reggie Ansah Editor-In-Chief and fashion editor Shivani Lal for featuring my work. A special mention to photographer Alexis Chabala who took my portraits, and also Emily Brooks who wrote the piece. Thank you Luxure.

Hungarian Peacocks, Artist Book

Really pleased to showcase ‘Hungarian Peacocks’, an artist book created on an original 1920s tailoring manual. The patterns begin to look like mosaic collages utilising an array of coloured paper, tissue and acetate. The work proposes that patterns are beautiful drawings in their own right.

Photos: Denis Laner

For enquiries please e-mail hormazd@narielwalla.com

Excited to win Saatchi Art’s Showdown prize

Really excited to win Saatchi Art’s Showdown prize for ‘The Body Electric’. Judge Raffi Kalenderian has chosen Le Petit Echo de la Mode No.5 as the winner of The Body Electric Showdown and Maarten Van Den Bos as the runner-up. Praising the high standard of entries, Raffi said: “I loved the colors and composition of Hormazd Narielwalla’s piece. The scale of the work also seemed perfect. When I read about his process of making collages and finding radical abstraction within antique tailoring patterns, sourced from a Parisian fashion magazine, I thought: “This is an artist after my own heart.” Maarten Van Den Bos’ work struck me as wonderfully beguiling. The scale for this work seemed important, too. I wish I could see it in person. The line between figuration and abstraction is handled in a superior way. There is a psychic energy between the figures, and I dig it.”

Thank you so much Saatchi Art.

Representing the Body

I am so pleased to share that my work has been shortlisted for a Saatchi Art Showdown prize, under the category ‘The Body Electric’. The prize drew over 4000 applicant entries, of which Le Petit Echo de la Mode No.5 made the TOP 30 final shortlisted works.

The role of the ‘body’ has played a recurring theme in artworks since Dead Man’s Patterns (2008) an artist’s book inspired by the bespoke suit patterns of a deceased customer, cut by the eminent Savile Row tailors Dege & Skinner. The tailors would ceremoniously shred the patterns of former clients, since there is no value in the parchment without the body. The photographic sequence depicting the making of the garment is charged and ghost-like within the context of the title Dead Man’s Patterns; where the patterns make the absent figure tangible’. Each section of the book suggests different physical states of the ‘man’ with a sense of formal preparation for burial. The physical man is never there; the book’s pages gesture towards intimacy even though they are merely paper.

Subsequently I responded to lingerie tailoring patterns sourced from a London designer (c.1970), by making the series Love Gardens by layering them with coloured paper to create abstract representations of female anatomy referencing the work of Georgia O’Keefe.

To complement this series I used Savile Row shirt collar tailoring patterns and newspaper clippings, with spray paint mounted on inkjet prints to create phallic collages. Suits are the predominant international uniform of men in positions of power. Does Sir dress left or right? This charming tailoring euphemism has a fascinating equivalent in radiology. The John Thomas sign refers to the orientation of a penis in an anteroposterior x-ray. I take the discarded Savile Row menswear tailoring patterns and make their masculinity shockingly explicit. Does the viewer see them as proud or ridiculous? Perhaps, like the x-ray, John Thomas exposes the vulnerability a suit conceals.

In 2013 I was commissioned by Crafts Council, England to exhibit five sculptures at the Saatchi Gallery for Collect. The works were intimate, fragile structures created from quarter-scale military patterns of uniforms from the British Raj (1850-1947). The works epitomized a romantic memory of falling in love with a fictional character – a handsome English officer from the TV mini-series The Far Pavilions (1984). Inspired by the construction of Anthony Caro’s work, the structures were created from the negative space around the patterns to narrate the absent body. The body and its story is no more but my memory and patterns live on.

In my most recent series Le Petit Echo de la Mode the female form is shattered into precise overlapping facets, flattened not as multiple views of a subject but as the object itselfmade from single pattern sheets. These compositions recall the Cubists, who strove to paint pictures that compressed the sensation of all faces of an object simultaneously into one image. Art historian Arnason in History of Modern Art (1988) explains that ‘the cubists like Picasso and Braque broke ancient system’s fixed, unitary, hierarchical focus into democratically multiple perspectives, they created a mixed or composite image, presented as if viewed from many different angles at once’. In this context it is significant to position patterns as relevant 2D flat representations of 3D bodies. Like the Cubists, tailors analyse bodies and produce drafted mathematical patterns that can be viewed as the entirety of the body. Tailoring patterns are artefacts in themselves: they present every facet of a garment, and inevitably the body along with it, on a single sheet of paper. These patterns seduce me, not to cut and detach, but to leave intact and explore the multiple aspects and angles of the body by filling in the planes. In the process this becomes a realization of the Cubist philosophy. The history of these radical original pattern abstractions from fashion magazines (1897–1983) and the history of pattern cutting (1580 onwards) predates the Cubist movement.

My work propose a new interpretation of tailoring patterns as interesting abstracted drawings of the human form which have an inherent aesthetic quality that can be used innovatively to develop a contemporary art practice. Freed from function they are drawings ahead of their time, anthropomorphic in origin and beautifully abstract in isolation.

A Celebration on Collage, collection for Saatchi Art

Honoured to be invited by Saatchi Art to curate a collection on Collage for them. to view the collection please visit A Celebration of Collage. It comprises of 50 works highlighting the diversity of work from installation to 2D, to sculpture. I wanted to show that painters borrow techniques from collagists.

 

Collaboration with Tiger of Sweden

Tiger of Sweden commissioned me to make a drawing for them, and my work just got a little bit sexy! I layered vector based tailoring patterns on top of each other to create a face of a Tiger and ended up on mens pants and stylish hankies. Thank you Tiger of Sweden.

Partying with my art and friends at Duke Street Emporium

A few days ago I shared my collaboration with Jigsaw and Shop at Blue Bird for their Duke Street Emporium. It was a fun night with friends Fiona Ransom from Pavane, Amanda Lambert from the Hollywood Road Arts Club, Kieran and nice to bump into Navaz from Disney Roller Girl. Thanks to the team at Jigsaw and creative agency Dalziel-Pow.

 

Collaboration with Jigsaw

I’m really pleased when Jigsaw contacted me to see whether I would be interested in exhibiting work in a curated space in their new Duke Street Emporium. I was really excited for 3 reasons. Firstly the brand has a history of being associated with art and artists. Secondly, for the first time all the brands – i.e Jigsaw womens, mens and Shop at Bluebird will be housed together and lastly – the location used to be a tailoring establishment decades ago. It’s indeed a very exciting project to be involved in. To read an interview and learn more – please visit here. 

Featured in Harpers Bazaar, UK

Really excited to be featured in Harpers Bazaar UK in relation to Spring Fever an exhibition with Saatchi Art in association with Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill and Republic of Fritz Hansen. Thank you Harpers Bazaar!

Art for the Saatchi Suite at Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill

The following 15 artworks are installed in the Saatchi Suite hosted at the eminent Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill for Saatchi Art’s Spring Fever exhibition. Each work is available for sale and can be acquired easily though Saatchi Art. Please click on individual images which takes you to my profile offering all information for each piece.

Preview of my work for the exclusive Saatchi Suite for Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill

I am really excited to see the photos of the Saatchi Suite and reception for the exhibit Spring Fever in association with Saatchi Art, Republic of Fritz Hansen and Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill. The exhibit is open from the 27th March 2014 and is free of charge. Some of the other artists include Tully Satre, Tahnee Lonsdale, Louise Di Nuzzo, Oscar Lett and Gabriella Boyd.

Femina Pune, India Magazine profile feature

I’m really touched that Femina Pune (a women’s magazine) did a profile of my work and placed me under ‘Men We Love’ section :-)… I love you too Femina Pune and Editor-In-Chief Corina Manuel for commissioning the piece. I’m so grateful to good friend Denis Laner for taking the photos of me in my studio.

The Saatchi Suite Installation at Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill

A photo diary of todays events – installing the Saatchi Suite for Spring Fever an exhibition on emerging artists of Saatchi Art in collaboration with Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill and Republic of Fritz Hansen. I’m so honoured that my work is installed in the Saatchi Suite alongside RA graduate Tully Satre and stunning furniture designed by Poul Kjaerholm. A very big ‘Thank you’ to Chief Curator of Saatchi Art Rebecca Wilson for choosing me and to Richard Turner and Emily King for being such great hosts from the hotel. Special mention to my dear friend Deborah Goldman for helping me with the installation. The Saatchi team were indeed a lot of fun to work with. Spring Fever features 21 artists and is open to the public from 09.00 on 27 March 2014, free of charge. A one-night stay in the Saatchi Suite at Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill featuring starts from £960 (including VAT) on a B&B basis. A lovely option to be surrounded with art and design whilst staying in central London. Note: All the work on display is available to purchase from Saatchi Art.

Spring Fever, a collaboration between Saatchi Art and Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill

I am really pleased to be hand picked by Chief Curator at Saatchi Art Rebecca Wilson for Spring Fever an installation in collaboration with Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill and Republic of Fritz Hansen.

The exhibition comes hand in hand with the unveiling of a brand-new interpretation of the Saatchi Suite – an exciting, contemporary art experience unlike any other in London. It will house iconic furniture from Republic of Fritz HansenTM including a highly sought-after four piece furniture collection by Danish designer, Poul Kjaerholm (1929-80) entitled PK 4 x 20, inspired by Piet Mondrian’s 1935 painting, Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue.

Alongside the furniture of Kjaerholm will be works by me and Tully Satre, which explore texture through collage and painting.

I will have 15 pieces on display ranging from my Oscar Hodgepodge series to the Lady Garden series and will also include works from the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. An exclusive piece is created for the Suite inspired and in response to Mondrian.

The exhibition further cements Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill’s ongoing support for up and coming artists, and encourages guests and visitors to interact with art in new ways, outside of the usual environment of a gallery or museum. All the works in the exhibition are available for purchase.

More to follow. For all art visit my Saatchi Art profile.

Age of Romance – new work

My latest piece follows the theme of the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. The collage is made from an original c1900 French tailoring pattern. The materials used to create the collage are black card and antique gold lace paper mats. Please visit Saatchi Art to see more information and how to acquire.

Hope my followers have a wonderful weekend!

 

New Work added to my Le Petit Echo de la Mode series

I have added new work in my Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. They are all made on original antique French women’s domestic patterns ranging from 1950s onwards. Please visit my Saatchi Art profile to find out more about individual work by clicking on each image or visit Saatchi Art/narielwalla. Thank you! 

 

My Work chosen for Saatchi Art’s ‘Burning Bright’ installation for Hyatt, London

I am really pleased that curator of Saatchi Art Rebecca Wilson chose Le Petit Echo de la Mode No.50 for the Burning Bright. 

ABOUT BURNING BRIGHT: EMERGING ARTISTS FROM SAATCHI ONLINE

On 20 February Saatchi Online opened an exhibition at Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill, part of the hotel’s continuing association with the international art world. Burning Bright gives hotel guests a unique opportunity to interact with contemporary art outside the normal art environment of a gallery or museum. It also gives artists a special opportunity to have their works viewed by hundreds of hotel visitors each day.

Fairy-God, Fashion-Mother A.K.A Diane Pernet

I decided to make an exclusive series of 6 little works of Diane Pernet on original bespoke tailoring patterns. Don’t they look fancy? Really pleased that Saatchi Art included the last one in their Fashionista Collection. To find out more about them please visit Saatchi Art.

My Solo Show, India Art Fair

Really excited to share photos from my Solo participation at the current India Art Fair 2014 in New Delhi. The solo expo is supported, sponsored and represented by the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata and curator Lyla Rao. The experience I hear (I sadly couldn’t be present) was great with lots of interest and sales. Thank you to the Birla family for making this wonderful experience happen.

 

New Acquisition – World War I period mourning clothing women’s tailoring patterns

I am really excited to acquire original World War 1 period women’s mourning clothing tailoring patterns. They are produced on a delicate tissue with embroidery details on the reverse. These patterns are highly technical with inspiring compositions in themselves. It also so happens that this year is the centenary remembrance of World War 1. My instinct tells me to work in large scale and unlike the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series I’m drawn to the lines of the patterns rather than the space between the intersections of the lines.

Photo Credit: Denis Laner

My work travels to New Delhi for the Indian Art Fair 2014

Press Release

Birla Academy of Art and Culture presents

“Le Petit Echo de la Mode” by Hormazd Narielwalla at the

India Art Fair, New Delhi, 2014.

 The Birla Academy of Art and Culture is proud to present a fascinating body of works by the UK based, young and upcoming artist Hormazd Narielwalla at the prestigious India Art Fair, New Delhi, from 30^th January to 2^nd February 2014. Founded in 2008, the India Art Fair is the country’s premier international art fair and a pioneering platform for modern and contemporary art in the Asia region.

 The use of bespoke tailoring patterns to create complex collages has been central to Hormazd Narielwalla’s art practice. His latest works further explore the blurring lines between fashion and art, and the tensions that lie between figuration and abstraction. On display will be works showcasing the evolution of the artist’s style, with a focus on his most recent series Le Petit Echo de la Mode, which draws inspiration from the similarly named fashion and lifestyle magazine published in Paris between 1897 and 1983. Plucked from the pages of this once popular home magazine, Narielwalla transforms the nifty ‘do-it-yourself’ tailoring pattern guides, that consist of a mesh of lines dots and numbers, into a cubist’s delight of abstracted shapes, that render the female form two-dimensional. In keeping with his practice of infusing his works with a sense of rejuvenation through the re-use of discarded materials, Narielwalla re-works these tailoring templates into delicately faceted planes of colour, thereby breathing new life into these once abandoned patterns.

The solo exhibition of Narielwalla’s work marks the entrance of the Birla Academy of Art and Culture at the India Art Fair, while simultaneously extending its commitment to showcasing high quality contemporary art both domestically and internationally. The uniqueness of Narielwalla’s preference of medium and his playful yet critical approach to the subject matter makes him a natural choice for the India Art Fair 2014.

My Channel 4 interview and the Lady Gardens series

I was really excited to be interviewed on Channel 4 where I discuss my Lady Gardens project in response to Christmas as an outsider. This prompted me to add more work to the series.

Please visit Saatchi Online to know more about the works and how to acquire. A very Happy New Year to all my followers, readers and fans of my work. God bless you all!

 

A feature of my work for the Indian Art Fair in Winter issue, Printmaking Today

I am really excited with my double spread feature by the wonderful Nancy Campbell in the magazine Printmaking Today. The feature reviews my upcoming solo show at the 5th edition of the Indian Art Fair in January 2013, represented by the Birla Academy of art and culture, booth S8.  The magazine can be purchased from the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, The National Gallery, Whitworth Gallery, Arnolfini Books, City Art Gallery Aberdeen, Glasgow Print Studio, Edinburgh Printmakers, Bankside Gallery. Thank you very much Nancy!

 

Connect – A Fabelist production

 

 

I was really privileged to be invited by Francesca Goodwin, director of the Fabelist to show at their most recent exhibit – Connect hosted by A-Side, B-Side Gallery, Hackney Down Studios. It was indeed a very special night and the exhibit got great reviews. Visit Dragonfly Comms a.k.a Vanessa Champion who reviewed the show. Read an interview of mine at Run Riot.

All photos taken by Vanessa Champion.

 

SHOWstudio collaboration and We are subMISSION feature

I am really excited to announce that my work will be available at the iconic SHOWstudio. Their curators also wrote a lovely blog post comparing Savile Row tailors with surgeons. An interesting juxtaposition I think and reminds me of artist Rihan Solomon’s who’s work featured along-side mine at the exhibition Block Party. I am really pleased with this collaboration with SHOWstudio. Thank you ever so much Mr. Nick Knight.

I am also pleased to share an 8-page spread of my Le Petit Echo de la Mode work in online magazine We are subMISSION – please follow HERE to view the magazine.

All photos courtesy: Denis Laner

Happy autumn weekend!

Memories of the Raj – new work

I am pleased to release these intimate screen prints on leather, where moments have been snipped from the British Raj. They can be acquired on their own or you can create a series. Please visit Degreeart to view in detail.

Photography of Art: Denis Laner

 

My work exhibited at Banda property’s – Parkgate House

 

My work is currently installed alongside 65 other artists’ in Banda Property’s newest project – Pargate House. Really grateful to Managing Director Edo Mapelli Mozzi for being so hospitable and encouraging of my work. This installation orchestrated by the wonderful Amanda K Lambert (photographed with me). Thanks to her for her efforts in pushing my practice. The installation consisted of 6 illustrative works produced on original bespoke Savile Row patterns cut by the skilful cutters at Dege & Skinner, No.10 Savile Row.

 

A family of Master Tailors

I had the pleasure of meeting Master Tailor Charles Smith who has generously gifted me his precious tailoring patterns. It was also a chance for me to leave London for a day to visit the scenic Leagh-On-Sea where he lives to spend a memorable day out with him, his daughter Peggy-Jane and her lovely Alsatian.

A quick history of his tailoring background starts with his Great Grandfather, John Anthony Smith who lived in Chelsea and worked in Savile Row…also had a shop in Lisson Grove, Marylebone. (see above photo). Three of his sons became tailors (and his daughter Jesse became a trouser maker), Harry Smith, who it is said walked from London to Southampton and got on a boat to South Africa and opened a tailors shop with a Dutch Bore…however because he would not fight against the English in the Bore war he returned and worked for Savile Row. Thomas Smith who opened a shop in the High Road, Marylebone in competition with his father and later moved his business to Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Charlie’s father Arthur Reginald Smith worked for his father until he joined the army in 1911. He was a trouser maker (everything was made by hand)…but because of the war, he didn’t at that time learn tailoring through to the final process. When he was demobbed as Sargent in 1919 he took the shop over from his father who died from the Spanish Flue. He met and married Charlie’s mother, Ellen Annis Read who was a S.R. waistcoat maker and served her apprenticeship who became a fully qualified tailoress. She allegedly made for royalty and worked for tailors Pooles and Hawkes (now Gieves & Hawkes). Her sister, Alice also worked there. It transpires that her uncle was also a tailor.

Charlie’s parents not only had the shop in Marylebone, Church Street, but opened a shop in Notting Hill, 244 Lancaster Road. When war broke out for the second time they moved to Luton where he run a factory making army uniforms. Many tailoring firms like Dege & Skinner survived the war by making uniforms. Later the family moved down to Essex where Charlie had been evacuated and bought a house but commuted to London and worked for Jane and Judy, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge. This was apparently a fashion house that worked for the famous. Later they opened a tailors shop in Broadway, Hadleigh. Charlie then served his national service but worked for his parents…he did a cutting scholarship at the Tailor & Cutter ( he still has the receipt!) but was already a very good tailor. He went on to work for some very good tailors including Verani of Hamlet Court Road (who in turn worked for Collins & Lawrence/Wells) and Brackley’s. One of Charlie’s overcoats was put into the Tailor & Cutter competition and won a diploma in 1953/54. It was made for the cartoonist, Roy Uliate, from the Daily Express.

Charlie, took over his fathers shop in Hadleigh and after a short spell in Leigh-on-Sea (near his uncles shop) he opened a shop in Southend-on Sea in 1980 till his retirement in 2002 aged 72. He made clothes for Dr. Feelgood and got a write up in Melody Maker, and more recently made clothes for Reece (not his stage name) front man of the ‘Horrors’. He has worked for the Tower of London, Lloyds of London, the west end etc., etc…and now at 83 years old regularly receives telephone calls from old clients begging him to make for them…on occasions he makes exceptions and obliges!….

I am so priveledged to make acquaintaince with Charlie and hope you enjoyed reading his story. Will post once I have responded to these special patterns all rolled up and waiting to be made.

“Slashed” series re-visted for collaboration with Love-Denim store

I re-visted my Slashed series on request from my friends at Love Denim who have opened a new store in Truman Brewery, Brick Lane East London. The work is produced on original brown paper bespoke Savile Row patterns of Dege & Skinner, No. 10’s customers now deceased. Hence the connotation of  death. The prints are further worked into by slicing into and backing with bright red acetate to explore the concept of there being life once upon a time. Please do visit Love Denim.

 

Illustrated map of Edinburgh commission for AVIS

My illustrated map of the beautiful city of Edinburgh for AVIS goes live. Check out their blog post for more information…I really enjoyed making it after a bit of initial fear as I have never worked on a map before, and I certainly know it’s not going to be the last.

 

More works added to the ‘Le Petit Echo de la Mode’ series

I am really pleased to add more works to my ‘Le Petit Echo de la Mode’ series. The work as revealed previously is made from individual antique French domestic tailoring patterns. To refresh your memory visit here. The work is well received – I have SOLD three – No.1, No.4 and No. 16 – to view the available works  please visit HERE. Also Rebecca Wilson, the curator at Saatchionline included No.1 in their homepage collection of 48 works.

 

New Acquisition – Baughman’s Adjustable Combination Skirt System

 

A rare Edwardian find! Very exciting indeed!

Le Petit Echo De La Mode series

I am really excited to share this fresh body of work made out of French domestic dress making patterns from the fashion magazine Le Petit Echo De La Mode. Would love to hear what you think about it.

Below is the blurb written by my good friend and celebrated artist Ed Burton:

“Hormazd Narielwalla is an artist who makes collages from bespoke tailoring patterns from the famous Savile Row tailors – Dege & Skinner. His latest work mines a seam of precious material hidden between the pages of Le Petit Echo de la Mode. Published in Paris between 1897 and 1983 Le Petit Echo de la Mode was a popular fashion and lifestyle magazine. This home magazine follows fashion making it accessible to the stylish Parisian housewife. Within it, loose and often discarded, Narielwalla plucks a streak of radical abstraction. The magazine contains tailoring patterns that, for efficiency’s sake, layer the life-sized templates of entire garments onto a single sheet of paper. Each facet of the garment is encoded in an intricate web of lines, dots and numbers. Narielwalla challenges us to view this sheet not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. Shattering the female form into precise overlapping facets flattened not as views of a subject but as the object itself. 

Narielwalla makes the radical potential loose in Le Petit Echo de la Mode real. He cuts delicate sheets of coloured paper with the pride of a mother. The sheet of paper instructs the housewife, and the artist, to make itself. Predating Futurism and prefiguring Cubism these Le Petit Echo de la Mode abstracted the female subject to a degree more radical and precise than the highest aspirations of the 1912 manifetso Du “Cubisme”. Narielwalla discovers once discarded but now groundbreaking artworks that were begging to become real and loved.”

Photos: Denis Laner

An acquisition – a rare women’s paper dress making dummy

I was really excited to spot this 1900 rare women’s dress making dummy made out of thick card paper and now rusted adjustable bolts. The acquisition was made at an antique market on a day trip to sunny Brighton. This is a very exciting addition to my collection of patterns. Photos: Angela Murray

 

COLLECT2013, Crafts Council at the Saatchi Gallery – my photo diary.

It’s been one of the most exciting experiences of my life – to show my work at Saatchi Gallery. Exhibiting at Collect met all my expectations. As an emerging artist it gave me the exposure I need both on a macro level with a lot of national press including my Radio interview with Robert Elms on BBC London, and at a micro level I was able to meet collectors, curators, consultants and museum directors. I am also pleased that the National Museum of Norway are acquiring my first book Dead Man’s Patterns for their Special Collections having seen my installation. On an artistic note the experience has allowed me to evaluate and think of ways to develop the work for my upcoming solo London show at Margaret Street Gallery. This is the second time I have worked with the Crafts Council and I have to say it’s always a pleasure to see the level of high standard and professionalism. Lovely photos taken by Denis Laner, Deborah Goldman and Roy Hayward.

Elle Decoration and Dege & Skinner News piece feature

Really privileged to be on Elle Decoration’s news page with a special mention of my work, and also Dege & Skinner’s lovely news piece on my residency at Margaret Street Gallery.

 

My BBC Radio interview on the Robert Elms show

Yesterday was a really special ‘bank-holiday-Monday’. I was invited to speak about my work on the Robert Elms Show on BBC LONDON radio in relation to my participation at COLLECT2013 taking place at the Saatchi Gallery (10-13 May 2013). It was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had to be on Robert’s show. To listen in on a recording visit here.

 

Inspiration reference images featured on the Crafts Council website

The Crafts Council asked me to put together a Pecha Kucha of 10 inspirational images that influence and inspire my practice. Titled the Source featured on the COLLECT13 website. A lot of these influences have come from research in the archives at Dege & Skinner, London College of Fashion, the National Art Library, the National Army Museum and long intimate conversations with my dear friend and comrade software artist Ed Burton.